Exploring the Social Barriers During Their Learning Pathways for Women in Computing (WiC)

This work closely examines the social barriers Women in Computing (WiC) experience in their educational pathways in the context of Bangladesh, a developing country with Muslim as a majority religion. The work intends to find the research question as “What are the societal barriers that impact women in computing through their educational pathways from pre-tertiary level, during tertiary level and beyond?” The work considers 48 tertiary-level female students with computer science and engineering backgrounds from four major cities - Dhaka, Chottogram, Rajshahi, and Sylhet. The research uses Fictional Inquiry to express feelings through writing letters to a fictional character followed by co design workshop to address ongoing challenges. This work explores societal barriers WiC face prior to their tertiary education, during the tertiary level studies and their anticipations about job sectors that impact their learning and pathways to the future significantly. The work is expected to define important policies that can support WiC using activity theory to be used in other similar contexts.